Tomorrow Never Knows
by dudeurfugly
Summary: Oneshot. Max and Lucy centric. While fighting in Vietnam, Max has a near death experience that gives him the strength to return home from war. Please Read and Review!


"**Tomorrow Never Knows"**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Max, Lucy, or any other ATU character. **

**A/N: Okay, so this little fic popped into my head and I **_**had**_** to write it. It's Max and Lucy centric, but not in **_**that**_** way…lol. Before you read, I thought you might like to know where I got the inspiration for this story. **

**A couple nights ago, I had a weird dream. I don't know all the details of it, but one small part of it involved Max Carrigan. In the dream, Max was dressed in his Army greens, helmet and all. He was all sweaty and dirty, like he had just walked off the battlefield. And let me just say, he looked mighty fine…haha. Max was a hugging a girl--okay, so I don't know why, but that girl was me, for some reason. Not that I'm complaining… It looked like he was returning home from war, uninjured, unlike he was in the movie. I couldn't get the image of the expression on Max's face out of my head…so, I ended up writing a fic. Enjoy!**

* * *

Lucy Carrigan could hear the hum of midday traffic on the street below, even as she lay on the couch, one cheek pressed to the lumpy, ragged cushion. She was curled up in a tight ball, lying on her side, hands tucked under her head. Her sun drenched locks flowed gracefully down her back; half of it had fallen onto her face and she hadn't cared enough to brush it away.

The apartment was unusually quiet, as everyone else had decided to go their separate ways for the day. Jude was hidden away in his studio, absorbed in his work, in the midst of a creative breakthrough. Sadie and JoJo had gone out for a walk around the Village, taking advantage of the good weather. Prudence was…well, Lucy didn't have the slightest idea where Prudence was; she seemed to float in and out of the apartment on her own accord. And Max…

Max was off loosing his mind in Vietnam.

Lucy's sorrowful, azure eyes closed against the very thought, and Jude's lighthearted, Liverpudlian accent filled her mind as she remembered the day at the pier when they had talked about her brother being drafted, and how truly scared she had been.

"_Listen," _Jude had said, looking Lucy in the eye sincerely for a moment, _"no one and no gun is gonna get Max." _He smiled, and continued in a more joking tone, _"Ya know…he's so _twisted _he'll bend his way out of this fix."_

But he didn't. Max, who had been able to cheat his way out of high school and halfway through college, hadn't been clever enough to escape the draft. He burned his induction paper and ate cotton balls for nothing.

It was Max's voice that disrupted her thoughts this time, as she remembered the day of the march down 5th Avenue. The march protesting _against _the war. The march that ultimately defined who she was to become in this tumultuous era of change--a revolutionary. A woman fighting for a cause she held so near and dear to her heart.

"_Luce…Luce, come on, man, stop worryin' about it," _her brother had told her, taking her face gently between his hands, _"Nothing's gonna happen to me. C'mon, I might go in the Army and not get shipped anywhere. Throw around a few cards, learn how to box…"_

That certainly wasn't the case now. Lucy hated him for being so cocky and almost making her believe that everything was going to be all right when it clearly _wasn't_. For all she knew, Max could be fighting for his life right now…

A stray tear slid down Lucy's cheek and onto the couch cushion. She couldn't recall exactly how many tears she had shed for her brother over the past several months. Too many than she might have liked, perhaps. She refused to believe that the war would lead to her older brother's demise. He was stronger than that. Much, much stronger than anyone ever gave him credit for. Lucy knew--she knew him better than anyone else in the entire world.

Max would come home. She knew he would. He had to. If not for everyone else, then for her.

* * *

It was mass chaos, to put it simply.

The sky above was no longer visible, clouded by thick, dark smoke and fire, painting the entire area in an eerie, orange-red glow. Large explosions blazed forth, surrounding the panicked troop of American soldiers, creating an atmosphere that would make anyone _without_ claustrophobia uneasy. The heavy smoke and ash, combined with the heat from the intensity of the flames made the soldiers frantic, scrambling around, firing at the enemy. Or what they _thought_ was the enemy, anyway. Often times, it was extremely hard to tell. Everyone was so plastered with mud that no one knew who was on what side anymore.

Max Carrigan ran forward, keen, cerulean eyes scanning the confusing scene, gun up and ready to fire. He had been praying that they wouldn't get ambushed; his body was too exhausted for this. His Army greens were splattered with mud, and he could no longer tell that his boots had been black at one point, because they were so covered in filth. A bomb went off somewhere a distance behind him--sending flames and smoke swirling up into the sky--which caused the young soldier to pick up his pace. Sweat dripped down his face as he fired, mixing with the dirt and grime.

Willing his already tired and aching body to move, he propelled himself ahead, shooting as he went, trying to ignore the sights of his brothers in arms falling to the battlefield, giving the ultimate sacrifice to their country. Max felt incredibly overwhelmed; this was the worst fight he had to endure yet in his tour of duty. The noise seemed relentless--bombs whistling shrilly as they dropped to the earth, bullets pelting the landscape and the bodies of men, helicopters whirring overhead, their blades beating the air.

It was the worst situation Max had had to handle in his entire life. He could hardly make sense of it. To him, it seemed like it had only been a short time ago when he had been sitting in Katz's trying to come up with ways to avoid being drafted. Now, he was here--an American soldier, fighting on the front lines in Vietnam. Forced to kill in the name of the fucking government against his own will.

Canada seemed like heaven compared to this.

Max kneeled behind a fallen palm tree, tucked down with his gun propped up against the charred, muddy bark. He fired away, yelling and screaming over the thunderous sounds coming from all sides.

"Die!" Max bellowed, angry and weak. "Die!"

As soon as the hectic noise reached its peak, it seemed to dissipate. Everything began to die down, and the smoke started to clear, the sky only barely visible. Max foolishly thought that everything had stopped, and sunk down into the mud behind the tree trunk in order to try and catch his breath. He hardly had time to even hear the bullet soaring toward him; the next thing he knew, there was a searing hot pain in his forehead. He fell back onto the ground, and blacked out, finding the darkness a temporary relief.

_Turn off your mind, relax _

_and float down stream _

_It is not dying _

_It is not dying _

When Max came to, he felt no pain. His eyes fluttered open and he was met with silence. An eerie, almost deafening silence. He was still lying on his back; he stared up at the sky, which was mostly overcast, with only a few spots where the blue managed to filter through. Max felt a light, refreshing breeze ghosting along his sweaty skin. He sat up to have a look around, puzzled. He was lying in the middle of a barren field--the same battlefield he had fought on.

But there wasn't anyone there. Not for miles and miles…

Perplexed, Max picked himself up off the ground, absentmindedly rubbing the place on his forehead where the bullet had struck just moments before.

_Am I dead?_

God, he hoped not.

_Lay down all thought _

_Surrender to the void _

_It is shining_

_ It is shining_

"Max!" He heard a familiar voice penetrate the silence. "Max!"

The young soldier gazed in the direction of the voice, and saw his sister, Lucy, running toward him through the field, her long, blond tresses blowing out behind her. She was running rapidly, barefoot, through the dirt.

"Luce?" Max asked, uncertain. "_Lucy_?"

Surely, he couldn't be dead if Lucy was here. But then again, he couldn't exactly be _alive_, either.

_That you may see_

_The meaning of within _

_It is being _

_It is being _

_What is Lucy doing here? _

Max's question went unanswered. Lucy, in hysterics, crashed into her brother's now open arms with enough force that sent him stumbling backward a few steps. He regained his balance, embracing his sister tightly, lifting her off the ground. She flung her arms around his neck, never wanting to let go, afraid that she might lose him. Max set her down, still holding on firmly, letting Lucy cry on his shoulder. He rested his chin in the space between her neck and shoulder, his expression a mix of relief, confusion and sadness. An expression of someone who was terribly broken, scarred physically and emotionally by the torments and stresses of war.

Someone who wished that what he was experiencing at the moment was real. He was exhausted--tired of carrying the weight of his country on his shoulders. It was getting to be too heavy, too much to handle. He wanted nothing more than to go home. He wanted to heal.

"Oh, Max," Lucy sobbed, as Max began rubbing circles onto her back, "Max…I was so worried about you. I thought…" she couldn't bring herself to finish that sentence. "I love you so much. I wish you could come home…_please_, Max, just _come home_…"

_That love is all _

_And love is everyone _

_It is knowing_

_ It is knowing _

Lucy reluctantly pulled herself way from her brother, and looked up at him, cobalt meeting cobalt. Max took her face in his dirt-covered hands as he had on that day of the march. He hated staring at her innocent, hopeful expression when he knew that wherever his body _really _was, there wasn't a good chance that he was even alive.

"I wish I could, Luce," The elder Carrigan replied, his voice breaking, "But--"

_But I don't think I'm going to make it, _was what he was going to say. Lucy cut him off before the words could come out of his mouth.

"But you _can_, Max," Lucy stated. "I _know_ you can…"

_That ignorance and hate_

_ May mourn the dead _

_It is believing _

_It is believing _

For once in his life, the carefully built façade crumbled away and Max let his emotions show. He was scared shitless--scared of disappointing his sister. Scared of coming home in a body bag, just another casualty to add on to the growing statistics. Tears streamed down his cheeks, making trails in the grime. He felt ashamed for crying, knowing it made him look like a coward. But he didn't seem to care--it was the one way he could deal with all that had happened to him over the past several months. He only wondered how he hadn't totally lost it sooner; how it had taken him this long to finally fall over the edge of sanity.

It was true, what they said: Vietnam _did_ make you lose your mind. Max hadn't realized how true it was until now.

Lucy, unaccustomed to seeing her brother in such a state, attempted to comfort him. Max fell to his knees onto the dirt with a hard thud, face in his hands, terrified and troubled at the same time. Lucy knelt in front of him, and waited for him to glance up at her. With her thumb, she wiped away the last remaining tear from her older brother's pallid cheeks, and took his face between her own hands as he had done to her only moments before.

"Don't you _dare_ give up on me now, Maxwell Carrigan," Lucy ordered, biting her lip to keep in her own tears. The sadness in her brother's eyes was beginning to make her heart break into a million pieces. "You're stronger than this. You _are_ coming home. Believe that--you _have_ to. For me…for Jude, and Sadie, and JoJo and Prudence…Mom and Dad and Julia…We miss you."

_But listen to the _

_color of your dreams _

_It is not living_

_It is not living _

Max nodded, and Lucy faded into the breeze, disappearing before his very eyes. Bewildered, he tried to stand up but was pushed down by an unseen force. He was lying on the ground again, gazing up at the sky. His eyes closed, and he was surrounded by darkness once more.

When his eyes opened, he became aware of the loud sound of helicopter blades whirring above him, close to where he lay. He wasn't lying on the hard ground anymore; it was something slightly softer, made of fabric. And he was moving. Max focused his vision and stared upward at the men hovering over him. He appeared to be on a stretcher, surrounded by Army doctors and some of his comrades as they lifted him onto the helicopter.

The doctor standing over him seemed to be genuinely surprised that he was awake.

"You're one lucky son of a bitch, Carrigan," he chuckled. "A shot like that would normally kill a man. You must have someone watching out for you."

Max tried to smirk, but the pain in his forehead was excruciating. "Have to…get home." he stated, his voice weak and barely sounding like himself. The doctor heard him, though, as they placed him carefully in the helicopter.

"Don't you worry, Carrigan. We're going to take good care of you. We'll get you fixed up," he reassured the young soldier, "You'll be home soon."

_Thank you, Lucy, _Max thought. The helicopter was taking flight now, and the doctors were fussing over him, pumping him with pain meds and assessing his bullet wound. _You saved me. I'm coming home…_

_Or play the game _

_existence to the end _

_Of the beginning _

_Of the beginning _

_Of the beginning_

_ Of the beginning_

_ Of the beginning_

_ Of the beginning… _

* * *

**A/N: Hope you enjoyed it. It took a lot of effort, btw. I had to go and watch some scenes in the movie to get the settings, the quotes (sorry if they're not completely accurate), and that scene during Helter Skelter right. Please, please review!! It would be very much appreciated… **


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